Browser Addon That Helps You Ignore Spammy Comments

[LoyceMobile]

When the forum first introduced the merit system, everyone was given enough merit to keep their current rank. For example, since I was Legendary at the time, I was given 1000 free merits. I currently have 1537 merits. 537 of those were earned by me, and 1000 of them were given to me for free.

There are a bunch of people with over 1000 merits, but make spammy posts (ex BTCEvo in my opinion, who has 1007 merits but posts that repeat what has already been said/don't make sense. Only 7 of those were earned by them)

Is it possible to find that out via the UI? If that's not the case I think the only thing we can do is to increase the treshold.

I can get you a list of users who earned more than a certain amount of merit.
Does that work to whitelist them all?

Even if you put the threshold at 2 merit you'll rejected most spammers.

[CapnSparrow]

I know, I was pointing it out for CapnSparrow who is new and likely would have not known.

Thanks. I've added "HoweyCoins" as an exception. It's fair to do that for HoweyCoins.

[CapnSparrow]

Here's my attempt at this: https://gist.github.com/Tiramisu77/155f1e076c58728efc06131c7226baee

The results are not guaranteed to be always correct, because the function assumes that the user has maxed up their activity throughout the period between today and the day merit system went live, it also assumes that Legendaries rank-up at 902 activity (in reality it's random between 775 and 1030).

Also, I couldn't find the exact date when merit system went live, so I used Jan 24, 2018, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I've reviewed the code. Thanks for the effort but that's too many assumptions for the task. Trusting raw merit number might be more safe here. If it doesn't work out, we may implement "userExceptions" list which is the list of users who have too many merits but still spam. I guess that list wouldn't be too long.

I can get you a list of users who earned more than a certain amount of merit.
Does that work to whitelist them all?

Thanks but I guess that list would be too long to maintaiin. Let try the current approach for some time and see if it works out.

[LoyceMobile]

I maintain that list already and can easily add another weekly upload if you want to give it a try.

[jackg]

When the forum first introduced the merit system, everyone was given enough merit to keep their current rank. For example, since I was Legendary at the time, I was given 1000 free merits. I currently have 1537 merits. 537 of those were earned by me, and 1000 of them were given to me for free.

There are a bunch of people with over 1000 merits, but make spammy posts (ex BTCEvo in my opinion, who has 1007 merits but posts that repeat what has already been said/don't make sense. Only 7 of those were earned by them)

Is it possible to find that out via the UI? If that's not the case I think the only thing we can do is to increase the treshold.

the best way I think this can be done is by saying.
If usermerit < 500 and > 300 then show their posts
If usermerit < 1000 and > 600 then show their posts
If usermerit > 1100 then show their posts
Maybe also if merit > activity

[AverageGlabella]

I am in two minds about this.

On one hand, the spam problem is huge. The majority of topics, and even some entire boards, are unreadable due to bounty spam. I don't blame anyone who wants to try to hide all this nonsense for either an easier forum experience or simply their own sanity, and good work from OP to create this script.

On the other hand, everyone has to start somewhere. While the majority of bounty spammers will be bounty spammers for life, there are undoubtedly a small number who will mature over their time in the forum and become useful contributors. They will never achieve that if senior members are ignoring all their posts, not responding to their questions, and not involving them in discussions. By ignoring them all, we'll also be preventing the few good ones from earning any merit.

As I said, I have no issues with people who want to use this, but it feels too much like newbie jail for me.

Spam is a massive issue and this approach is ignoring the problem rather than solving it. What could be a better approach is to automatically report certain replies instead of ignoring them. This could become a problem because of the workload for the staff members but I think would proactively help the forum rather than ignoring one of its biggest issues. That also means that if the users start to improve their post quality they aren't just going to get ignored.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Spam is a massive issue and this approach is ignoring the problem rather than solving it.

I don't think there is a way of ever solving the spam issue, short of having every post manually reviewed by a moderator prior to being posted, which is obviously completely untenable. More active reporters and more sub-board moderators would help, but that's a whole 'nother conversation. As I said, I can't blame people for wanting to ignore the problem, but I'm just not too keen on ignoring the users, and therefore removing their only way out of that behavior and condemning them to be spammers forever.

Edit: Spelling

[CapnSparrow]

As I said, I can't blame people for wanting to ignore the problem, but I'm just not to keen on ignoring the users, and therefore removing their only way out of that behavior and condemning them to be spammers forever.

You're a nice person. On the other hand, the addon doesn't ignore them forever. When they remove ads from signature they become visible again. But I guess you think they will never know what the problem is, so won't change signature.

[jackg]

Spam is a massive issue and this approach is ignoring the problem rather than solving it.

I don't think there is a way of ever solving the spam issue, short of having every post manually reviewed by a moderator prior to being posted, which is obviously completely untenable. More active reporters and more sub-board moderators would help, but that's a whole 'nother conversation. As I said, I can't blame people for wanting to ignore the problem, but I'm just not too keen on ignoring the users, and therefore removing their only way out of that behavior and condemning them to be spammers forever.

Edit: Spelling

The altcoin board is a board that is well moderated. I've reported posts that have been deleted within seconds of them being posted.

There are users who have been ignored in the altcoin board long enough that the work their way into making a thread in the b&h board which I think is a great start...

[LoyceV]

I can get you a list of users who earned more than a certain amount of merit.
Does that work to whitelist them all?

Thanks but I guess that list would be too long to maintaiin. Let try the current approach for some time and see if it works out.

Just in case, here it is:

See http://loyce.club/Merit/userID_merit.txt, updated weekly (usually on a Friday/Saturday, after processing theymos' weekly Merit data dump).

This list only shows users who had a Merit transaction, if someone with "0 Merit" is on the list, that means he only sent Merit.

[CapnSparrow]

Just in case, here it is:

See http://loyce.club/Merit/userID_merit.txt, updated weekly (usually on a Friday/Saturday, after processing theymos' weekly Merit data dump).

This list only shows users who had a Merit transaction, if someone with "0 Merit" is on the list, that means he only sent Merit.

Thanks for the list. However this user-script's approach is a little different. Key points are:

1. Someone who is shilling a coin in signature is a coin shiller.
2. Having too much merit doesn't change this situation (Yes, I made an exception in this script upon feedback and actually I'm not comfortable with that. It may change in the future.).
3. I'm not interested in what a coin shiller has to say.
4. Also I don't want to completely remove what a coin shiller says. Only make reading it more difficult. Hence the mouse-over animation. That difficulty helps me remember that that comment is probably a spammy comment.

The user script currently addresses above issues. Injecting a huge key-value DB in the script is not necessary at this time.

Thanks again for the feedback.

[UserU]

Only ICOs are targeted right? Casinos exempted?

[CapnSparrow]

Casinos included. Signature ads tempt users to post spammy, useless comments (most of the time). If there are different kind of ad deals in this area please correct me.

My point is when some users post garbage comments only to show their signature to more people.

[UserU]

Casinos included. Signature ads tempt users to post spammy, useless comments (most of the time). If there are different kind of ad deals in this area please correct me.

My point is when some users post garbage comments only to show their signature to more people.

While I do agree with you, there are some who genuinely converse with one another (such as quoting).

Nevertheless, it takes trial and error to perfectly filter spammy and genuine contributions.

[Pmalek]

Casinos included. Signature ads tempt users to post spammy, useless comments (most of the time).

You should take a look at this thread > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=615953.0 < listing Bitcoin Signature Campaigns and then check the members that take part in those campaigns. You will see that some of the most trusted and/or best posters on the Forum take part in some kind of signature campaign. So putting everyone in the same boat by saying they post 'useless comments (most of the time)' is a bit over exaggerated.